The fact that car seats are being made a legal requirement for children under 12 or under 1.50m is excellent news. I hope that means that TCS will approve more harnessed higher weight allowance seats.

Gosh, thinking about that 150cm being the height requirement to legally be allowed NOT to use a child-safety seat... I'd have been in one until I was 12 for sure, I'm only 160'ish cm now!

I was just talking to my mum about this and the fact that our son can't open the buckle of his restraint (hands just aren't strong enough - even I struggle to click it sometimes) and she told me about their neighbour's daughter who took the straps off their child seat and threaded them back in so the buckle was facing inwards which solved the problem of their toddler undo-ing her own seat.

May not work for everyone but thought I'd share the tip anyway.

OT but they also changed the door handles on most of the internal doors of their house so they had to be pushed upwards instead of pulled downwards for the same reason.

Don't we have to be devious, as parents..?

Still OT - we turned our door handles just 90° so that they were vertical and had to be pushed sideways to open the door. Gave us an extra 6 months at least...

Looks like this will be law from 1st April 2010 from this article.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Ch...86186000&ty=st

Interesting comment at the bottom for families with 3 young children.

Why is this good news? All this is doing is preying on us paranoid parents to go and spend more money on what should be unessesary gadgets for our kids. What they should be doing is petitioning car manufacturers to design their seat belts so they are height adjustable so that booster seats are no longer necessary. All this law does is make car seat makers more money & parents poorer.

Babies & toddles should be in car seats yes, I would not dream of driving without them but for older kids the car should be designed to accomodate them.

this is the same kneejerk reaction that the Swiss typically have after an isolated incident. I heard on the radio last week that 271 children were injured in car accidents in the last year (no specific details were mentioned) and when there is an incident with one death, the safety brigade come out in force.

At least it's child seats and not dogs this time.

Child locks on the rear doors would have made this a non-incident. It's not about changing the law to secure your kid until it's embarassing for them.

For the kids in greatest danger, nothing will change. Parents will either flout the law, not be able to afford the appropriate seat or simply not understand what is required of them.

My car locks the doors once we start moving and does not unlock until the engine is off and key is out of the ignition. Even the simpler cars have child locks - why not teach the people how to operate that little lever?

Are parents with 3 young children supposed to change their cars? Looking at some of the guides for cars they classify most cars as being able to fit 2.4 child seats, so in that case, they are either going to run 2 cars or buy a bigger monstrosity like these 7 seaters.

The suggestion of better rear seating or at least the option to have child specific restraining as standard should not be that costly to manufacturers. I have seen a few car models that do offer build in child seats as an extra. However alas these are really in the minority at the moment.

magic - let's look at the incident this way; if the new seats law was in place last week and the little 'un was still able to get out of the harness and open the door, would anything be different in what happened?

I learned at a young age that you can lock your Nana in the back of the car by switching on the child lock as you closed the door "for her". Everyone needs to know how these work and I'm sure they are now on every car.

With 3 young children, you have the challenge of actually fitting in 3 seats across the back row. Sometimes, that's not possible as you suggest (maybe a forward-facing one in the front seat is possible).

Volvo, I think, have booster seats built in (as a more-cost option).

There is nothing monstrous about a 7-seater - you can get some nifty 6- and 7-seaters. If you're willing to have so many children [in a short time] then you should also be prepared to not compromise on carting them around safely in your vehicle.

And we have not even touched on friends and relatives cars. Would you allow Little Johnny to take the short trip to the shops in the back of Grandad's car - without the appropriate seat?

No, strangley enough we have ours set so the kids cannot open them.

This was a tragedy and I was trying to be pragmatic in life, someone elses tragedy but does not stop people learning something from it, even if it is just to review how you cart your children about.

Yes, currently we have two full car seats and one booster seat, however if the law (do not know the full details as yet) demands that there be three full child seats then I am asking the practical question of how to accomodate them.

Volvo only has two booster seats, agreed you can go for the bigger ones which have two seats in the boot.

Yes, our relatives do take our children in their cars and of course with the appropriate car seats, why do you think we would not?

As above this is a tragedy and we should all try and take something from this to make sure our children are safer.

This has been law (at least in a similar way) in the UK since mid 2006 so it looks like it is popping up in other European countries as time goes by.

In a way I think it is a good thing if you over-tighten the law on issues like this, that way it will probably cut down on the incidents of idiots trying to take short cuts which, in turn, will save a few more unnecessary and tragic deaths.

magic - my suggestion that some people might cut corners is absolutely not directed at you.

The comment about the 12, 11 and 8-year-olds by "John" is interesting as a 12-year-old would not need any safety device (according to the defined standard). If the 11-year-old is 150cm or taller, neither would he/she.

Interesting that a comment there from a former EF "star" makes reasonable sense (whilst also not understanding much of the proposal and offical markings which will be present on these seats) - until he states that "Heavy penalties should be given to parents or people who insist on driving long distances with their child unseated, or worse unbuckled." I'm sure a good amount of prangs happen on the local shopping run - which is usually a short journey.

Again, the child would have still fallen from the vehicle even if the pitbull was wearing a muzzle, sorry, the new-improved-super-carseat was being used.

How many would you say is "so many" in a short time though?

I'm one of 5 kids and there are "only" 12yrs difference between the eldest and youngest... what sort of vehicle do you suggest for today's parent that can fit FIVE child-safety seats?

Thinking about it, my elder sis is only about 5 feet tall, I think she may have just squeaked out of having to sit in one so maybe we'd only have needed four.



Far more effective I think was the knowledge that my father would have tanned our hides if we did not have our tails firmly planted unless we were in a parking lot.

I don't disagree with you but car seats are not as safe as their manufacturers and the people who pass these laws would have us beleive. This is why I advocte putting the responsibility back on the car manufacturers and away from parents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/ma...668293&ei=5070

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.co...vs-seat-belts/

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.co...ont-work-well/

you're right. This is the Nanny States that we start to live in. Sod getting the people to do the right thing themselves, invent a law so you can clearly lay blame.

But, today, you would have needed to get either an old, old car which did not have seatbelts fitted or get a car with 5 + 2 proper seats. And then figure out if the short, young ones could actually legally travel in it!!

Of course you have to also factor in that a parent is not allowed to "tann hides". Maybe this also has a bearing on this.

From Lou's link (first one): Child car seats "are 54 percent effective in reducing deaths for children ages 1 to 4 in passenger cars". It goes on to state that the 54% improvement is over unsecured children.

Again, the kid would not be brown bread if the door could not be opened from the inside.

There is an article in Blick this morning reviewing these new carseats that are required up to the age of 12. The average cost of these seats is CHF300! The seat manufacturers are going to be laughing all the way to the bank.